John Marshall > Quotes

“The Constitution is colorblind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.”
― John Marshall

“The power to tax is the power to destroy.”
― John Marshall

“The law does not expect a man to be prepared to defend every act of his life which may be suddenly and without notice alleged against him.”
― John Marshall

“An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation.”
― John Marshall

“The people made the Constitution, and the people can unmake it. It is the creature of their will, and lives only by their will.”
― John Marshall

“. . . a constitution, intended to
endure for ages to come, and
consequently, to be adapted to the
various crises of human affairs.”
― John Marshall

“It is emphatically the province and duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is.”
― John Marshall

“...the particular phraseology of the Constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle, supposed to be essential to all written constitutions, that a law repugnant to the Constitution is void; and that courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument.”
― John Marshall

“The intercourse of America with the world, and her own experience, had not then been sufficient to teach her the important truth, that the many, as often as the few, can abuse power, and trample on the weak, without perceiving that they are tyrants; that they too, not unfrequently, close their eyes against the light; and shut their ears against the plainest evidence, and the most conclusive reasoning. It was also urged, with great effect, that the possibility of obtaining foreign aid would be much increased by holding out the dismemberment of the British empire, to the rivals of that nation, as an inducement to engage in the contest. American independence became the general theme of conversation; and more and more the general wish. The measures of congress took their complexion from the temper of the people. Their proceedings against the disaffected became more and more vigorous; their language respecting the British government was less the language of subjects, and better calculated to turn the public”
― John Marshall, The Life of George Washington

“The power to tax involves the power to destroy.”
― John Marshall

“An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy”
― John Marshall

“I am N!ai. When the white people first came, I was already a young woman with breasts. Before the white people came, we did what our hearts wanted. We lived in different places, far apart, and when our hearts wanted to travel, we traveled. We were not poor; we had everything we could carry. No one told us what to do.
Now the white people tell us to stay in this place. There are too many people. There’s no food to gather. Game is far away, and people are dying of tuberculosis.
But when I was a little girl, we left sickness behind us when we moved.”
― John Marshall